Trivia: Large towns in UK with no railway station

[transmanche]

Milton Keynes was one of the first towns if not the first to have one.

Gosh no. Rediffusion started back in the late 1920s, with a cable network relaying radio broadcasts in Hull. The company started delivering 'piped tv' quite early on.

 

[yorksrob]

Indeed. They may have had something experimental but it was just the three channels in those days. Also in the UK we have shopping CENTRES and FIBRE.

Rediffusion and British Relay Television were two of the big names. The latter had over a million subscribers in the late 1960s.

I think they were quite common in new towns and places that (because of geography) were not well served by broadcast transmitters. In Milton Keynes, for example, TV aerials were banned and all houses were cable-ready. Due to the number of people moving out from London, they also received the London ITV service as well as the local one.

You can still see evidence of the old systems in the areas served.

View attachment 73190
Image shows a photo of a concrete 'manhole' cover in situ, with 'Rediffusion' written on it.

Milton Keynes was one of the first towns if not the first to have one. You have to remember when it was designated in 1967 it was designed to have all the things you would want in a town at the time.

I remember my parents had Rediffusion for a short while in the 1980's but it seemed quite futuristic at the time.

 

[DavidGrain]

My Grandmother had British Relay TV in the 1950s. All the houses on her council estate were cabled actually running from house to house under the eves as the service was not available when the streets were laid out